A Green-throated Carib, one of 24 new “lifers” for 2015. This was in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
I told myself 2015 would be a “big year” kind of year for birding. I started well! I had intended to see how many species I could see within South Dakota during the year. I started early, getting all the winter birds you could reasonably expect around here, then really hit it hard in spring. During spring migration I did a lot of birding, and had reached 200 species in the state by mid-May.
And I ended with 221 species. Part of it is the obvious…that it gets harder and harder to find new species as the year goes on. Part of it was health. Starting in June, I started having all kinds of eye issues, and birding just wasn’t at the top of my priority list. 221 within South Dakota is still a nice year though. Throw in a trip to Arizona in November for work, where I took a couple of personal days to bird, plus a week in the Virgin Islands on vacation, and my yearly list was closer to 300. A mere 5800 or so fewer than Noah Strycker saw on his year-long quest to set a new world-wide birding record.
For the year in South Dakota, I only saw a handful of new species. I’m not even sure how many I have lifetime in the state. Overall there have been about 435 species seen in the state. For 2015, new ones included the incredibly strange Great Kiskadee that was found in November near Brookings, Violet-green Swallow (I don’t get to the western part of the state much), Gray Jay (see previous comment about traveling west), and a Black-necked Stilt. Only the Kiskadee was a life bird, as I’d seen the others before out of state.
Lawrence’s Goldfinch, another 2015 lifer. They can be tough to find, even in range. Sometimes they move into Arizona in winter, and I was lucky in finding several in Tucson in November.
Thanks to my birding in Arizona and the Virgin Islands, I did have several new lifers for 2015 other than the Kiskadee. 24 in total, with the new ones for 2015 including:
- Elegant Trogon (Florida Canyon south of Tucson – HUGE highlight for me, particularly finding one in November when they’re tough to find)
- Scaled Quail (SE of Tucson)
- Hammond’s Flycatcher (Florida Canyon south of Tucson)
- Plumbeous Vireo (Florida Canyon south of Tucson)
- Lawrence’s Goldfinch (Within Tucson itself, a really nice one to pick up given how hard they can be to find)
- Cassin’s Sparrow (SE of Tucson)
- White-tailed Kite (SE of Tucson)
- Rufous-winged Sparrow (SE of Tucson)
- Hepatic Tanager (Madera Canyon south of Tucson)
- Black-whiskered Vireo (Virgin Islands)
- Caribbean Elaenia (Virgin Islands)
- Magnificent Frigatebird (Virgin Islands)
- Scaly-naped Pigeon (Virgin Islands)
- Mangrove Cuckoo (Virgin Islands)
- Zenaida Dove (Virgin Islands)
- Green-throated Carib (Virgin Islands)
- Lesser Antillean Bullfinch (Virgin Islands)
- Antillean Crested Hummingbird (Virgin Islands)
- Gray Kingbird (Virgin Islands)
- Pearly Eyed Thrasher (Virgin Islands)
- Bananaquit (Virgin Islands)
- Black-faced Grassquit (Virgin Islands)
- Antillean Nighthawk (Virgin Islands)